


Larva

by JoesAlot



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Gen, Inhuman Mindset
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25987840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoesAlot/pseuds/JoesAlot
Summary: When Taylor is shoved into the locker, a trigger event occurs. She leaves the locker a changed person. (Bug!Taylor, Maggots)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Larva

You are a bug.

A maggot, to be specific, happily wriggling and slurping away at a tasty, bloody meal that you've been eating away at ever since you've hatched. The area is warm, dark, filled to the brim with soft cushions that hold and envelop you just right. There are no rays of scouring sunlight to shrivel you up and no cold gusts of wind to starve you of heat and freeze you. It's the perfect home, the perfect hatching ground.

Then, something _ massive  _ suddenly enters the hatching ground, producing a horrible keening sound that your nonexistent maggot ears cannot hear but can  _ feel, _ vibrations that disrupt the perfect stillness you were relaxing in just moments ago. The thing flails, knocking over everything its body touches. The cushion you’re on dislodges violently, and your entire world shifts as you fall downwards, a distance farther down than you ever knew existed.

This isn’t something you can handle. It’s something so much bigger than you. You’re powerless to stop it. More and more of the cushions smother you, crushing inwards. The life-sustaining blood that had nourished you just moments ago is now drowning you. You can't breathe. You-

_ Splitting. Fractaling. Like eggs but far more numerous. There are so many of them, a larger number than anything you've ever known before. Huge. Sprawling. Infinite. You feel one approaching, shooting across distances so vast it scrambles your mind. It comes closer. Closer. It- _

Nothingness.

* * *

It comes back to awareness somewhere warm, soft, similar to the hatching ground in many ways. Yet… something's different. There are appendages on its body, strange, foreign limbs that  _ move _ and  _ grasp, _ so alien compared to the squirming and wriggling that it was so used to.

Still, there's an instinct that guides it, as if it were supposed to develop limbs like this, if not such long ones. It extends a limb, and then another, probing through the soft sea of… something that it is in. Out of nowhere, something niggles at the back of its mind. It should be flying by now. It tries to flex its wings to no avail. Odd.

Yet another urge, compelling it to open its eyes. Then it sees. It had never seen before until now, but here it was. So far, and so clear! Countless blurs of color, standing out so  _ sharply _ against each other. White, black, red, green; it hadn’t even known any of these things existed. It feels its mouth expanding into a wide slit. Even its  _ mouth _ is different, containing hard formations that ground against each other in the strangest way.

Then, movement. With its newfound vision, it notices a thing nearby that it hadn’t even known was _ alive. _ It tries to look closer with its sharp vision, but the blurry, slumping shape isn't something it recognizes. The thing spontaneously goes rigid, then shoots upwards. It’s tall.

Suddenly, there are sounds. A commotion. Things are  _ loud. _ It doesn’t like it. Previous feelings of wonder and curiosity are replaced by a need for safety and comfort. It retreats back into the sea of cushions, the sheets folding and forming a cocoon around its body, making it feel safe, warm,  _ better. _

“…ver here, she’s woken up! Someone come over…”

“…hing’s are going to be okay Taylor, just…”

“…stay with me here, talk to m…”

…

* * *

"Me, Dad. You, Taylor." An appendage points between it and the owner of the appendage. The appendage is pointed towards it. "Taylor." Then towards the owner. "Dad."

It doesn't pay much attention to the meaningless sounds and gestures, instead opting to take in as much of its surroundings as it possibly can. It had thought that it could see well before, but this was staggering. After a set of clear circles had been dropped in front of its eyes, it could now see every single minute detail as if it were looking at it up close.

It sits on a hard surface, which is speckled black with reflective squares patterned throughout. The walls of the room appear to be very slightly bumpy, and running its hands across the wall produces the most curious sensation. There are colored rectangles that adorn the walls, forming images that it doesn't recognize but appreciates nonetheless. Seeing is a  _ joy. _

“Taylor.”

The sound prompts it to look up.

"Taylor," the thing repeats again. "Please, I'm begging you."

It doesn't understand the noises, but there's a certain sentiment behind the sounds that it can feel nonetheless.

"Taylor." The sound is repeated for the third time, hollow-sounding, upset.

Upset. It doesn't like this 'upset.'

"Tssssss…" it offers, replicating the first part of the sound.

"…Taylor?" The sound has an edge of questioning to it, hesitant.

"Taeeee…" it drags out the syllable, haltingly.

"Taylor!" Eyes lock. Somehow, it knows it's being referred to.

"Taeeylooouur…" it says lopsidedly, pointing a single digit towards itself in the same way the thing had done.

An inhalation of air. Exhalation. The other thing's mouth opens in an orientation similar to the way its own had before, when it had seen for the first time. They no longer seem upset. This, it decides, is good.

A finger is pointed once more.

"Dad."

* * *

It looks at itself in the mirror.

This is a “Taylor?”

Black, spiraling fibers that curl off from its head. Four long, hinged limbs attached to a torso, a collection of fleshy appendages grown on the ends of each one. A face on the front of the head, with its flowing features and curves, a moving, shifting mass of flesh that breathed and ate and  _ saw. _

It had never been able to see its own body prior to this, but somehow, it doesn’t think this was what it was supposed to grow into.

…What  _ does _ it know though? Before just recently, it had only known how to eat, squirm, and breathe. Things simply happened. Now it could see, it could hear, it could do all kinds of things that it had never  _ dreamed  _ of doing, including the act of dreaming itself.

Memories of the past few days come back to it. Eating 'real' food for the first time, the Dad frantically trying to stop it from eating all the sweet powder that was set in the middle of the 'table’. Watching a moving image, the things moving without moving, a clear screen preventing its fingers from moving through. Hearing laughter when it tried to get through anyway. A warm embrace, a ruffling of its hair, the feeling so similar to the comforting confines of the hatching ground.

Taylors had all of this.  _ It  _ had all of this.

It would be a Taylor from now on, it decides.

It likes this.

Taylor likes this.


End file.
